Patrick Bate Ayuk

About me

I was born/grew up in: Mamfe, South West Region, Cameroon

I now live in: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I completed my training/education at: MSc in Biomedical Sciences from Sweden, BSc. Medical Laboratory Science, Medical Laboratory Technician Certificate from Centennial College

What I do at work

My day-to-day work is varied. Sometimes I am with patients and do blood collection. At other times, I am in the lab where I prepare solutions and reagents for running different tests on the blood sample. These tests can be biochemistry, hematology, microbiology, or histology tests. I also assist with the continuing education of our department with lab set-up and requirements. I use a lot of different and specialized equipment such as blood analyzers. We work as a team with senior medical laboratory technologists.

My career path is

When I was in high school, I have wanted to work in the medical laboratory profession. I worked hard and today I have achieved my goal. I am also planning to continue my studies so I can become a medical laboratory technologist one day. I have a BSc in medical laboratory science from my home country Cameroon. Then I completed a MSc in Biomedical Sciences from Sweden. When I came to Canada, I obtained a Medical Laboratory Technician certificate. I did my internship for the technician program in Toronto General Hospital.

Some of my family members are also in the medical field. This helped develop my interest in this area. Watching medical laboratory science programs on television and through social media like you-tube also help to increase my interest for this career. One of the challenges in this profession is keeping up with the advances in the technology and instrumentation in laboratory testing and analyzes. I participate and attend conferences and seminars organised by my professional association CSMLS to learn new things and advance my career.

I am motivated by

I really enjoy working to save human lives. For me running the laboratory that analyzes of patient specimens in very interesting. In addition, finding out more about what causes people to become sick and looking for ways to investigate the best treatment for human diseases through clinical research is a strong motivating aspect in my career. Seeing people getting well and recovering from their situations is a big joy for me. I find this to be very rewarding.

How I affect peoples’ lives

In health care, patient results and treatment is highly dependent on the lab results. For the best patient care, the medical laboratory profession has a relevant and important role to play. As a medical laboratory technician, the work I do plays a critical part of the patients’ results and decisions made by the physician for treatment.

Outside of work I

I like volunteering with CSMLS. I also enjoy playing and watching soccer.

My advice to others

I would advise any young person interested in my career to be very positive that he or she can make it no matter how challenging it may seem. Just work hard and you will make it happen in your life.